Indiana's fastest teen: Lynna Irby is 'not like everybody else'

Pike High School track star Lynna Irby is passionate about race, culture, politics. "I'm American, I'm black, I'm a female, I'm just fast because I'm me." Irby competes in her last IHSAA state track and field tournament June 3, 2017.
Jenna Watson/IndyStar

“If you didn’t know her, you would have no idea she ran track,” said Kyla Shabazz, one of Irby’s close friends at Pike High School. “She does not talk about it at all.”

No talk is necessary. Credentials speak eloquently.

Irby, 18, has never lost to another Indiana sprinter in high school. In the postseason, she is 55-0. She started running at age 9 and has not lost to another Indiana sprinter since she was 10. Including age-group track, she has 22 national titles.

In Saturday’s state meet at Bloomington, the senior will go for an unprecedented quadruple-triple – four years of sweeping the 100, 200 and 400 meters. North Central’s Maicel Malone, a 1996 Olympic gold medalist, came close: 11-for-12 from 1984-87.

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Center, Pike High School runner Lynna Irby practices with blocks during Pike's track and field meet, Monday, May 22, 2017.(Photo11: Jenna Watson/IndyStar)

Irby is finishing off one of Indiana's most distinguished high school athletic careers, irrespective of gender or sport.

The Pike sprinter might be more famous if the state meet were televised, as it was when Malone ran; or if more locals had witnessed her five world medals, or if she were not a contemporary of Sydney McLaughlin, a New Jersey hurdler who made the Olympics at age 16 and has been labeled the biggest phenom since LeBron James.

Followers of track and field can be mesmerized by numbers and data. Irby is having none of it.

“I don’t look at track stats,” she said, “because I know how I am. I’m a worrywart, and I freak out a lot. If I were to look at that stuff, I would just be nervous all the time.”

It would be something more to think about, and she is always thinking about something. She has matured since she was a child collecting more than 100 Barbie dolls.

She took her SAT the day after last year’s state meet and said she scored 1,100. Her 3.7 grade-point average places her 83rd in a class of 589.

Pike teachers say she is hard-working and unpretentious. Lisa Kuzniar, an algebra teacher who has coached other sports, did not know Irby was an athlete until track season came around. Kuzniar first saw her run when volunteering at a home meet.

“I had no idea what I was about to witness,” the teacher said.

Kuzniar said she was more impressed by Irby’s attitude than her times. The sprinter congratulated every other runner after a race.

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Third from left, Lynna Irby poses for a picture with her best friends, as they prepare to graduate from Pike High School at the Indiana Farmers Coliseum, Indianapolis, Thursday, June 1, 2017.(Photo11: Jenna Watson/IndyStar)

Irby does not always win. She ran for senior class president, lost, and conceded she was “a little devastated.”

She is not what you’d call a social activist but regularly retweets posts about political and social issues on her Twitter account (@monalynna_smile). She doesn’t want to go into politics because it is boring and “toooooo much . . . way too much.” She is passionate about minority voting.

She is not offended by jokes that she said others might consider racist or stereotyping.

“I don’t know when the world became so sensitive,” she said.

There are a couple of things she does find sensitive: skin tone and her ancestry.

In the black community, beauty standards can be an issue. Irby, who is dark-skinned, resists those suggesting light skin is better.

“No, dark is beautiful as well,” she said. “At the end of the day, we’re all black, so why are we trying to put labels on who’s beautiful and who’s not?”

She is similarly irritated by those claiming she has “Jamaican speed” or must be African. No, she said. She has traced the family tree to Mississippi. But she is from Indiana. Born in Merrillville, lives in Indianapolis.

Her biggest supporters have been her mother, Nakela Young, and former stepfather, Billie Young Jr. (They are divorced. Irby said her biological father died when she was a freshman.) Irby took her mother’s maiden name. Two brothers, Billie Young III, 15, and William, 10, also run track. At most meets, her maternal grandparents, Walter and Leaner Irby of McCordsville, are there. She has had the same boyfriend, Maxwell Hamm, for three years.

In one way, the sprinter overcame nature, because so many precocious female runners reach puberty and never recover. Bodies change. So do priorities.

“It was always easy for me to stay on the right path because my parents and coaches reminded me, ‘God gave you a gift. Don’t squander your talent,’” Irby said.

She is no longer the waif who was winning at the Junior Olympics. She is stronger, fitter, wiser.

Michael Vinson of the Indiana Storm club coaches her in summer and part of winter. Pike’s DeDee Nathan coaches her in spring. Neither coordinates training with the other, which ordinarily would not work.

“It only works because each of us respects the other’s season,” Nathan said.

Nathan, 49, is an Indiana University graduate, Olympic heptathlete and former world indoor champion. She is seeing history to the finish line. She does not plan to coach past Irby’s final state meet.

Nathan has prepared Irby to run six races at the state meet: trials and finals of the 100 and 200, plus 400 and maybe the 1,600 relay. The coach said she knew from the beginning that Irby could do what she has done.

“She’s special. There’s just something about this child,” Nathan said. “She’s not like everybody else.”

Except when it comes to this go-to workout: four sets of 300 meters, 2-minute rest, 150 meters, 4-minute rest. The last of four 300s is to be run in 40 seconds (or 53.3-second pace for a 400), and 150s are all-out.

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Pike High School runner Lynna Irby waits around between races during Marion County track and field championships, Tuesday, May 22, 2017. (Photo11: Jenna Watson/IndyStar)

Pike combined boys and girls programs this year, and Irby trained with the boys. Boys didn’t want Irby beating them — “they were flying,” she said — and Irby doesn’t want anyone beating her. Horrible workout, she said. For everyone.

“It looks like a battlefield,” Nathan acknowledged.

Irby is battle-tested, and will need to be. There are girls who have almost beaten her or her times.

There are different rivals in different events: Avon’s Diamond Mitchell and Brebeuf Jesuit sophomore Semira Killebrew in the 100, Warren Central’s Mikeisha Covington and Ben Davis’ Kyara Simmons-Avant in the 200, Gary West Side’s Antonise Christian in the 400.

There have been few lows among Irby’s highs. One came in July 2014, when she was beaten in the 100 and 200 by Candace Hill of Conyers, Ga., at the Junior Olympics. Irby was neither fast nor motivated.

“Looking back on it, I just wasn’t in the right mindset for it,” she said.

Coincidentally, Irby will be Hill’s roommate in the fall at the University of Georgia. In 2015, Hill became the first high school girl to run 100 meters in less than 11 seconds, and she turned pro at age 16. Hill trains with the college team, and Irby will represent the college team.

Irby said she never considered turning pro early, as other track teens have done. She said she wanted to take levels “in order.”

She was honored as IndyStar’s female athlete of the year at the Indiana Sports Awards in April. She won two medals at the under-17 youth worlds at Cali, Colombia, in 2015 and three at the under-20 junior worlds at Bydgoszcz, Poland, in 2016. Her 400-meter time of 51.39 for silver in Poland was fastest by an American girl since 2002.

She ranks No. 7 on the all-time high school list. Of the six faster at 400 meters, five own Olympic medals.

That is a lot of data for a worrywart to process. Better to ponder her latest ceramics creation.

“It’s so soothing,” Irby said of her new hobby. “I get to think about the piece and get inside of my own head.”

The pace is fast inside there, too.

Call IndyStar reporter David Woods at (317) 444-6195. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.

Third from left, Lynna Irby poses for a picture with her best friends, as they prepare to graduate from Pike High School at the Indiana Farmers Coliseum, Indianapolis, Thursday, June 1, 2017. Jenna Watson/IndyStar

Pike High School sophomore Lynna Irby (647) comes out of the starting blocks and races to the finish line to win the 400 Meter Dash with a time of 54.73. The 42nd Annual Girl's Track and Field State Finals were held Saturday, June 6, 2015, at the Robert C. Haugh Track and Field Complex on the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. Doug McSchooler/IndyStar File Photof

BYDGOSZCZ, POLAND - JULY 21: Lynna Irby from USA, Tiffany James from Jamaica and Junelle Bromfield from Jamaica on the podium after women's 400 metres during the IAAF World U20 Championships at the Zawisza Stadium on July 21, 2016 in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Adam Nurkiewicz, Getty Images for IAAF

Pike's Lynna Irby reacts to her 200 meter time of 23.53, during the IHSAA 43rd annual girls track and field state finals, Robert C. Haugh Track and Field Complex at Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind., Friday, June 3, 2016. Jenna Watson/IndyStar File Photo

Pike High School runner Lynna Irby and coach DeDee Nathan talk as Irby prepares to run the 200 meter dash during Marion County track and field championships, Tuesday, May 22, 2017. Jenna Watson/IndyStar

Pike senior Lynna Irby reacts as she places first in the 200 meter dash in 23.75, during the Marion County girls track and field championship at North Central High School, Indianapolis, Tuesday, May 9, 2017. At right, Warren Central sophomore Mikeisha Covington placed second in 24.28. Jenna Watson/IndyStar

Pike junior Lynna Irby breaks the regional record for the 400 meter dash in a time of 54.53 seconds, during IHSAA girls track and field regionals at Ben Davis High School, Indianapolis, Tuesday, May 24, 2016. Irby also broke the regional 100 meter dash record in a time of 11.78 seconds. Jenna Watson/IndyStar File Photo

Lynna Irby, 12, has won national track championships in her age group but she also loves her collection of Barbie dolls. She is seen at home in Pike Township Sunday August 21, 2011. Rob Goebel/IndyStar File Photo